This partition model of prime distribution is speculative and simplistic. Even so, it reproduces known asymptotics and observations from elementary first principles, and implies new conjectures about local fluctuations in prime gaps that would be difficult to justify without ideas from partition theory. Moreover, it preserves stochastic heuristics on prime distribution in that partitions are also treated stochastically.For example, in statistical physics; see e.g. Ch. 16 of [1]}, as well as [2]}. From the standpoint of scientific modeling, it is a pretty good “first-draft” model of the prime numbers. The reasonable predictive success of the model provides support for this appendix's central heuristic: the problem of prime gaps can be viewed as a problem about the enumeration of partitions.
